Chapter 3 Chapter 2 The Man Who Goes Nowhere

The cabin I found myself in was small and rather untidy.A man who looked very old was sitting next to me, holding my wrist.He had fair hair, a short, straw mustache the color of straw on his upper lip, and a drooping lower lip.For a while, we watched each other silently.His gray, watery eyes were impassive. After a while, there was the sound of the iron bedstead being knocked one after another, as well as the low, angry and roaring sound of some big animal.At this time, the man spoke again. He repeated his question: "How do you feel now?" I think I replied at the time: Feeling better.I can't recall how I got here.He must have seen the doubt on my face, because my voice was still a little muted at the time. "You were rescued in a small boat, and you were almost starving to death. The name on the boat was 'Lady Green', and there were some strange marks on the edge of the ship's rail." In my hand, as thin as a dirty hide purse full of loose bones, everything that happened on the boat flooded back into my memory.

"Drink this," he said, handing me something chilled and bright red.The stuff tasted like blood, and it gave me strength. "You're lucky," he said, "to be rescued by a ship with doctors on board." He spoke with a bit of a tongue, articulating words as if he couldn't help drooling. "What kind of boat is this?" I said slowly, my voice hoarse because I hadn't spoken for a long time. "It was a small merchant ship from Arica to Calao. I never asked where it came from at first. I guessed it might be from the country of nerds. I was a passenger from Arica myself. The owner of this boat and the captain of this boat is a jackass named Davies. He lost his license or something. You know what kind of guy he is, he took this boat It's called the Yegen, out of all the stupid, damned names. Despite the rough seas, this ship can't even grab the wind."

【① Leaf root, root of Rubiaceae plants, produced in South America, used as emetic, etc. 】 As he spoke, the voice above his head rang again.There was a bewildering howl accompanied by a person's voice.Then another voice yelled at those "idiots abandoned by the emperor" and stopped. "You look like you're dying," said my interlocutor. "Near death. But now I've given you something. Notice your arm is red and swollen? It's been injected. You've been unconscious for almost thirty hours." I pondered dully.Was distracted by the barking of some dogs.

"Can I have some dry food?" I asked. "Thanks to me," he said. "The mutton is still piping hot." "Well," I said confidently, "I can have some mutton. "But," he said, hesitating, "you know, I'd really like to hear how you came to be alone in that boat." I thought I detected some suspicion in his eyes. "What a nasty howl!" He left the cabin suddenly.I heard him quarreling violently with someone who seemed to be answering him in short, unintelligible words.The argument sounded like it ended in a fistfight, but I guess my ears were wrong about that.Then he yelled at the dogs, and returned to the cabin a moment later.

"All right?" he said, standing in the doorway. "You just kicked me out." I told him my name was Edward.Prendick; and tell him how I came to love natural history as a diversion in my easy and independent life.It seems that he is very interested in it. "I've done some science myself - I studied biology in a university college - dissecting ovaries from earthworms, removing the horny strips with fine teeth from snails that tear up food, and things like that. Oh! That was ten years ago. Well, go on, go on—talk about the ship." Obviously, he was very satisfied with the frankness of my account.Because I felt so weak that I couldn't support it, I tried to describe it as concisely as possible.Immediately after finishing his lecture, he returned to the subject of natural history, and his own biological research.He began to ask me carefully about Tottonham Court Street and Gowa Street.

"Is Long Plage still as prosperous? What a store it is!" He had apparently been a very average medical student.After a while, he couldn't help turning the topic to the concert hall again.He told me some interesting anecdotes. "This was all a decade ago," he said. "How amusing it all is! And yet I've made a fool of myself?? Before I was twenty-one I had enough fun. I dare say it's all different now??. But I must Go to that stupid cook and see how he's done with your mutton." The howling from the top resumed, so suddenly and so wildly that it startled me.

"What's wrong?" I called after him, but the door was already closed. He came back with piping hot mutton.The savory mutton smell made me so impatient that I immediately forgot the noise of the animals. After sleeping, eating, and sleeping all day, I was well enough to get up from my berth.Stepped up to the porthole and looked out at the turquoise water trying to keep pace with us.I judged that the schooner was running with the wind.I stood there, and Montgomery—the flaxen-haired young man—came in again, and I asked him to find me some clothes.He gave me some of his own canvas-clothes, for he said all I had on in the boat had been thrown overboard.This guy is very big, with long arms and legs, and I look very fat in his clothes.

He casually told me that the captain was probably drunk in his own cabin.As I was getting dressed, I asked him questions about where the boat was going.He told me that the ship was bound for Hawaii, but he had to be taken ashore on the way. "Where is it?" I said. "An island?? I live there. As far as I know, the island doesn't have a name yet." He stared at me with his lower lip down, suddenly looking so goofy on purpose that I realized he was trying to avoid my question. "I'm ready," I said.He led the way out of the cabin.